The present invention relates to growing semiconductors on substrates having a patterned sol-gel material. The ability to pattern nucleation areas for semiconductor growth by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) or other growth techniques has applications in complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices and heteroepitaxy. One approach to the heteroepitaxial growth of lattice mismatched semiconductors is the use of selective area growth (SAG), which has applications in forming high efficiency multijunction solar cells. Further, the SAG technique has been used for the growth of wurtzite III-V semiconductors, such as GaN, on foreign 5 substrates to make light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
While many attempts have been made to grow zinc-blende III-V semiconductors, such as GaAs, on Si (with a diamond crystal structure) using the SAG technique, none have been proven to be industrially feasible. One challenge is that the techniques traditionally used to define regions for SAG, such as e-beam lithography and reactive ion etching (RIE), are too expensive to be scaled to manufacturing. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a method of growing high-quality semiconductor materials, such as GaAs, on lattice mismatched substrates at a lower cost than previous methods.